Cybersitter

In trying to make the Internet a safer place for children, I have run into the worst pack of liars I have ever had the displeasure of knowing. I am speaking of Solid Oak software and their ode to prejudice and bigotry, Cybersitter.

I have tried very hard and spent a fair amount of money, effort and just plain sweat to place meta tags in my pages for SurfWatch and RSACi. These tags are to allow individuals to choose whether to view my site or not. Updating 1000+ pages individually is not an easy task!!!

I received at the submitted email address the following obviously canned reply:

Received: from acorn.solidoak.com (207.71.209.129)
by smtp.tierra.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA09545
for <gunnar at paganlibrary.com>; Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:19:18 -0800
(PST)
Received: from rocket ([207.71.209.172]) by acorn.solidoak.com
(Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID#
0-58630U100L100S0V35)
with SMTP id com for <gunnar at paganlibrary.com>;
Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:20:00 +0000
From: [email protected] (CYBERsitter List Administrator)
To: <gunnar at paganlibrary.com>
X-Mailer: Re:PLY Windows 981.99.1.28 Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Organization: Solid Oak Software
X-Sender: CYBERSitter List Administrator
Subject: Re: Site Submission
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:20:00 +0000
Message-ID: <[email protected]@rocket>
X-UIDL: 5b10a6f390bcd917c64775b6dc000564
Status: U
Thanks for your site submission. If you are a customer reporting a site you
found offensive, we will review your submission at soon as possible.
If you are reporting a "Family Friendly" web site, we thank you for your
contribution to the internet and helping to keep it a fun place for the
whole family to visit.
If you are a adult Webmaster or site publisher, we wish to thank you for
your contribution towards keeping the internet safe for children.
If you want to further this effort, there are a couple of things you can do
on your end to help blocking software detect and block your site and/or
inappropriate pages.
By simply adding an HTML comment as the first line of your HTML code,
CYBERsitter and other blocking programs can easily prevent access by
children.
Examples:
<!--XXXRATED-->
or
<!--MUSTBE18-->
or
<!--MUSTBE21-->
or
<!--ADULTSONLY-->
All you need to do is include _one_ of the above example comments in your
HTML source code at the very top. It will not show up on your web page.
This _simple_ method allows you to identify your pages without the use of
complicated rating systems and is totally free.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NEW! We have established a domain you are free to use for your "EXIT" link.
It can also be used for failed login attempts. This link will automatically
take the user to one of the dozens of "Family Friendly" web sites that have
been reported to us over the past couple of years. All you need to do is
point the link to:
http://www.safe-site.com
We have set up a special server to handle the redirection to one of the
safe web sites on the list.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thanks, we appreciate your help.
Free Personal Internet profiles at:
http://www.whoami.com

This was fine, I'm accustomed to such bot-replies. My other email address, postmaster at paganlibrary.com received the following:

They claim:
On 02/01/99 12:13pm, gunnar at paganlibrary.com sent unsolicited e-mail to this account.
I used their online submission form! How can that be considered unsolicited?

This address is used for private communications and is not for public use.
They are using it for their submission process! If it's private, why use it for that?

The sender of this message is fully aware of this and is sending this message to this account as a form of organized harassment.
Excuse me? The only thing I have ever received from them was the canned reply thanking me for my cooperation.

If they had published this in a newspaper, they would, in all likelyhood, be in court on libel charges. If it weren't for the fact that I have both the [email protected] and [email protected] accounts, I would be trying desperately not to get my account killed with absolutely no idea why a Postmaster would be upset with me. I know that if I were on Geocities or some other service my account could very well be gone already with no explanation.

Is this the plan they working with all along, to get sites they disagree with killed, by whatever dishonest means neccesary?

Please understand, I have nothing against them personally, just against their practices.

Due to this behaviour, I have removed
ALL
RSACi and Surfwatch tags from my site. If they want to censor the web, they'll have to do it without my help.

Quote of the moment:Of course I still love you. Now stop whining and let me shoot you.

This site has received
hits since Aug 4, 2000

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